After falling each of the last six months, new business at Radian Guaranty Inc. has dropped to the lowest level in 23 months. The good news is that the number of delinquent policies has been lower for 13 consecutive months.
Quarterly earnings data indicate that the mortgage insurance company wrote $2.40 billion in policies during January.
Volume declined from the previous month, when $2.85 billion in home loans were insured.
Activity has retreated each month since July 2013, when the Philadelphia-based firm wrote $5.29 billion in new business.
In January 2013, M.I. volume was $3.99 billion.
The last time that Radian had this slow of a month was in February 2012, when just $2.05 billion in policies were written.
As of Dec. 31, 2013, Radian reported $161.240 in primary policies in force, growing from $140.363 billion at the end of 2012.
The mortgage insurer said it had 58,782 delinquent policies at the end of last month, fewer than 60,909 at the close of 2013 and 91,089 at the end of January 2013.
Radian has reduced its delinquent inventory each month since December 2012, when there were 93,169 insured loans that were past due.
Using an estimate of 841,509 outstanding policies as of the end of last month, Radian’s delinquency rate was an estimated 7.00 percent in January, improving from the prior month’s 7.26 percent and an estimated 11.75 percent in January 2013.
